


What Doesn't Kill Us (Makes Us Stranger)

by WearingOutWinter



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-13 00:33:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5687722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WearingOutWinter/pseuds/WearingOutWinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That week was strange, so strange. But as the world wobbles and tilts and rights itself, unreality still clings to the corners of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Doesn't Kill Us (Makes Us Stranger)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really into the idea of the supernatural as something that _sticks_ , instead of something that can be left behind or cleanly discarded. So here's a little bit of post-Polarized weirdness.

This time, when the storm comes for Arcadia Bay, it's different. It was always terrifying in its power, but now there is a viciousness to it, a savagery she didn't remember before. Max stands helpless on the hill and watches as the storm devours the town, great fangs of wind and rain tearing into the buildings. They splinter and shiver apart as the jaws of the cyclone closes on them, like a wild animal tearing flesh from the bones of its prey. Even from her distant overlook, Max can see the blurred and indistinct shapes, the figures running and stumbling and crawling in the streets. The sky above splits open, and lightning stabs downward, spearing the helpless people in the streets, stopping their frantic movements in an instant. Flesh torn away from bones.

“Max. Max! C'mon, Super Max, come back.”

Max wakes to Chloe leaning over her, face wreathed in the light from the bedside lamp. As the smaller girl's eyes flicker open, Chloe breathes a sigh of relief.

“Hey,” she says with a grin.

“Hey.”

Max croaks the word out from between dry lips. Her throat feels rough and raw.

“Did it happen again?”

Chloe shrugs with unconvincing casualness.

“It sounded like you were having a bad dream. All whimpering and shaking and shit.”

“Yeah.” Max sighs, propping herself up on her elbows. I saw... it was the bay again. The storm. But, you know, worse.”

“Yeah. I figured it might be that one.”

Chloe's voice is quiet.

“Yeah,” Max says again. “So it did happen again, then.”

“Max...”

“Chloe, please. Don't lie to me.”

Chloe sighs, then reaches out to smooth sweat-slick hair away from Max's brow.

“I don't— I mean, I... I just worry about you, Max.”

Max smiles sadly, and pushes herself up to kiss the blue-haired girl.

“I know you do,” she says as she brushes her lips against Chloe's cheek. “But I wasn't whimpering, was I?”

“No,"Chloe sighs. "No, you weren't. You were... Well, you know. It wasn't words, really, it was this deep rumble, this roar..."

"A roll," Max said quietly. "Like thunder."

"Yeah," Chloe echoed "Like thunder."

The blue-haired girl lowered herself to the pillow, laying her head beside her girlfriend's.

"I just... I don't want you to worry, Super Max."

"I'm not." Max says, not turning to look at her.

"Yeah." Chloe laughs without a trace of humor. "Who's lying now?"

Max closes her eyes. She remembers the first time, when Chloe shook her awake, half-panicked by the sounds that were too large, too primal, for her mortal throat. It takes a lot to rattle Chloe Price, but her girlfriend sounding like she was going to vomit a hurricane into the room had managed it.

The storm is past. But something of it lingers, in Max's voice when she sleeps; in her fingers when they tremble, heavy with static; in her eyes, when sky-blue darkens to the heavy grey of thunderheads. Maybe it's a battle wound, like a crooked nose that never sets right. Maybe it's a penance, something self-inflicted, like a scar scratched carefully across a wrist. Or maybe it's a token of respect: a flag gracefully dipped in recognition of a battle well-fought.

-x-

The truck door slams as Chloe climbs in, accompanied by a chill gust of winter air. Max ducks her nose into the zipper of her sweater to shield it from the cold.

“Thanks.”

Chloe speaks over the click of the seatbelt.

“No problem. Thanks for letting me borrow the truck.”

“Anytime, Super Max. How'd your gig go?”

“Not bad,” Max smiles. “I mean, it was just a couple of shots for some tour posters, but I think I have some good stuff to work with.”

“That's cool.” Chloe leans back in her seat. “What was the band called again?”

“Where the Oscar Wilde Things Are. They're cool. You'd hate them, though.”

“Hey, Caulfield, you can't say that.” Chloe's voice is full of mock outrage. “My tastes are many and varied. You don't know me.”

Max takes her eyes off the road for a moment and shoots the blue-haired girl a look.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Yeah, you do.”

Chloe leans over and kisses Max on the cheek. In an instant, Max stiffens: Chloe's breath smells like smoke.

Of course, that's nothing new. But this scent is different from the carcinogen choke of nicotine, or the herbal haze of weed. It is something sharper, deadlier: cordite and steel and hot brass. The smell of a freshly-fired gun.

Chloe notices the change, and pulls back uncertainly.

“Max? Everything okay?”

Max swallows thickly, and reaches for Chloe's hand. Her fingers curl around the taller girl's wrist, settling on her pulse point.

“Hey,” Chloe says softly. “It's okay. I'm still here.”

Max takes a deep, shuddering breath, and nods slowly. But she keeps Chloe's wrist in her grip the whole drive home.

Against all odds, Chloe Price still lives. But the deaths she never died still dog her steps. They scent her breath with gunsmoke. They dye her lips the heavy bruised blue of morphine. They make her heart beat heavy and loud, like the rumble of steel wheels over rails.

-x-

The sheets are soaked with sweat, their bedroom stinks of sex. As Chloe falls to lie beside her, Max ignores the pounding headache beginning to curl itself around her skull and kisses the blue-haired girl. A second after it begins, Chloe jerks away, her contented hum giving way to a pained hiss. Max winces in sympathy as Chloe presses the back of her hand to her mouth.

“You should have said something,” she says quietly.

“Just started.”

Chloe's words are short, clipped to spare her teeth undue movement—undue pain. She closes her eyes a moment, then opens them to stare at Max.

“You?”

Max nods, pressing fingers to her temples.

“Yeah. I just now noticed it.”

Chloe nods, rising from the bed, and begins to gather up her fallen clothes.

“We should hurry.”

They do, cold cloth pulled flinching over hot skin, wallets left behind but car keys snatched up like something precious. Chloe limits herself to two or three syllables at a time, and Max winces as every footfall and door-slam sends echoes ricocheting through her head. After a minute or two, after far, far too long, they're on the road, Chloe's truck chewing up the miles as the city recedes behind them.

They drive until they hit wilderness, where trees grow close and thinck and the truck's headlights are the only artificial light for miles. Then Chloe pulls off the road, driving further, deeper, until the truck can't find gap large enough to squeeze through. By then, Max has her eyes closed more often than not, squeezing them shut against the pain, and Chloe is driving one-handed, the other clamped tight against her jaw.

They scramble, stumble from the truck, jackets left behind for the morning, and stand gasping in the winter wind.

“Hey.”

Chloe reaches out, takes Max's hand.

“I love you, you know.”

Her eyes are yellow, slitted things now, and the tender fangs jut past her lips. Max's hands are growing smaller, harder, as fingers mold together into cloven hooves. She can feel the chill wind on her forehead too, where sprouting antlers have pushed aside her bangs. But before the feeling leaves her hands completely, she gives Chloe's a squeeze.

“I know. I love you, too.”

Chloe knows that. Knows it down to the precise to death toll and the millions of dollars in damage. Max made her choice, would make it again, and Chloe stood by her through Hell and high water both. But a choice like that, they had both learned, carried a weight with it, a toll on psyche. There are nights when the darkness presses down, and cruel dreams sink their hooks in. On nights like that—nights like this—when nothing good can come until the dawn, they withdraw into the wilderness, into the twisting change and baser instincts. Then they can curl up together in dreamless sleep, and antlered doe no more out of place than the gentle wolf by her side.

In the morning, their bodies will be there own again, the truck and the apartment welcoming their return. Their lives will go on. And one day the last of their scars will scab over, and maybe the universe will finally run out of cracks for the two of them to follow through. Until then, things will stay strange. But together, they can deal with strange.

 


End file.
